The verdict followed an hour of increasingly bad-tempered exchanges, with Mr Clegg repeatedly accusing his opponent of "fantasy".

He also picked up Mr Farage for "indefensible" comments in which he suggested he admired Russian president Vladimir Putin for outwitting the EU and western leaders.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Nigel Farage soon tells us that the moon landing was a fake, that Barack Obama is not American, that Elvis is not dead," Mr Clegg said.

The debate was moderated by David Dimbleby on BBC Two. Credit: BBC

But Mr Farage retorted that the Liberal Democrat leader was "wilfully lying" about how many laws were imposed on the UK by the EU.

"I said yes to these debates. I thought you would honestly make the pro-EU case," Mr Farage said.

"By saying 7% of our laws are made in Brussels, you are wilfully lying to the British people about the extent to which we have given away control of our country and our democracy and I'm really shocked and surprised that you would try and do that."

During one of the hardest-fought passages, Mr Farage warned that immigration had been a "disaster" and left the "white working-class effectively as an underclass".